The window is closing

I need to start off today’s missive with an important update. Last month I wrote a few articles about something that I believe is an absolute no-brainer if you have retirement savings– setting up a self-directed IRA.

Most retirement savings plans are locked in to a handful of investment options– employees are forced to make a selection among four or five choices, most of which are poorly managed funds run by the same institutions that clearly demonstrated their incompetence last autumn.

A self-directed IRA provides a mechanism for an individual to allocate his retirement savings in whatever way he chooses– whether his own portfolio of equities, physical gold, foreign real estate, overseas bank accounts, private placements, etc.

With a self-directed IRA you can take control of your retirement savings to ensure that some bumbling moron at a bankrupt financial institution doesn’t lose it all investing in Fannie Mae. More importantly, you can ship your savings offshore in a perfectly transparent, legitimate way.

I believe in this approach so much that I went through the trouble of negotiating a subscriber discount with Checkbook IRA, the same service providers that set me up with my self-directed IRA structure a few years ago. These guys are an honest, efficient, highly competent family operation, and I was grateful that they extended a $500 discount to subscribers.

I am writing about this again today for two reasons. First, I’ve exchanged a few emails with Jordan Sheppard at Checkbook IRA, and due to the amount of volume they are receiving and limited capacity within the shop, the discount will be discontinued effective next Friday, October 16th.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, I’m concerned about the direction that the market is going to take. There are a lot of people whose retirement savings are literally trapped in some blue chip index fund.

These are the same people who probably had a bad feeling last August that things were about to get really bad. They watched with horror as their positions took a 70% nosedive.

Fortunately, the last six months has been a period of irrational exuberance, and markets have recovered 50% from their lows. As markets tend to be forward-looking, though, can we realistically say that near-term prospects for the US economy are rosy?

Not by a long-shot. The Dow hovering near 10,000 makes about as much sense as lipstick on a pig.

Top line corporate revenue growth is weak at best, and there are numerous long-term factors which hamper earnings growth, namely: baby boomer retirees pulling their capital out of the market; costly health care regulation; increased corporate taxes; capital flows to emerging markets; etc.

Each of these factors has a negative bearing on long-term equity valuations. It is difficult to predict what will happen over the next few months, but given the carnage that we all experienced last year, it is probably more sensible to make low risk investments that mirror our economic outlooks.

This is why it is so important to unlock your retirement savings– with a self-directed IRA, your money will be protected from idiotic fund managers if the market takes another leg down.

If you currently have a retirement account that boxes you in to limited investment options, or keeps all of your savings within the United States, I’d highly encourage you to find someone that can set you up with a self-directed structure.

I’m comfortable recommending Checkbook IRA since I have worked with them in the past, and they understand unique needs like using a retirement account to buy physical gold and store it overseas.

If you give them a call, make sure you mention the Sovereign Man discount, which is good until October 16th.

Do you have a Plan B?

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You’re making a high-stakes bet that everything is going to be ok in that one country — forever.

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About the Author

Simon Black is an international investor, entrepreneur, and founder of Sovereign Man. His free daily e-letter Notes from the Field is about using the experiences from his life and travels to help you achieve more freedom, make more money, keep more of it, and protect it all from bankrupt governments.

Multiple times every week, we help over 100,000 Sovereign Man subscribers who are taking their family's liberty and prosperity into their own hands with our free publication, Notes From The Field.

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